Test of fiscal sustainability and causality hypotheses for Switzerland

Summary

This paper examines the causality between the Swiss federal governments revenue and expenditure over the 1900 to 2002 period by estimating the short- and long-run relation within an error-correction approach that places more emphasis on the long-run relation as a source of the causal link. The results suggest both that the fiscal policy is consistent with the governmental budget constraint — revenue and expenditure are cointegrated, and revenue cause expenditure and vice versa. There is also evidence that World War II had a significant impact on the stability of the cointegrating relation between revenue and expenditure.